Smart plugs are an underrated category in the smart home world. While they may not be as sexy as smart displays or color-changing light panels, they’re a quick and affordable way to bring on/off automation to devices that wouldn’t otherwise have it. The Amazon Smart Plug is meant to fit the bill for anyone decking out an Alexa-based smart home, and may be a default purchase for many people picking up Echo speakers. Find out if it’s worth adding to your collection in this Amazon Smart Plug review.
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What you need to know about the Amazon Smart Plug
- Amazon Smart Plug: $24.99 / £24.99 / €24.99 / Rs. 1,999.00
Amazon is pretty upfront about the Smart Plug’s focus: it’s built exclusively for Alexa. It doesn’t support Google Assistant or Apple HomeKit, or even standards like Zigbee or Z-Wave. You explicitly need the Alexa app for Android, iPhone, or iPad to connect it to your Wi-Fi network. This association is so close that if you shop for a speaker like the fourth-generation Echo, Amazon markets the Smart Plug as an add-on “accessory.”
The smart plug is indoor-only and operates on 2.4GHz Wi-Fi. While 5GHz is favorable for more advanced smart home tech, 2.4GHz is fine in this instance as the smart plug doesn’t need a lot of bandwidth and it ensures longer range coverage.
Check out: The best Alexa-compatible devices for your home
Depending on where you live, the exact form factor of the product may vary due to alternate power standards. Our review unit was a bar-shaped North American model with 120VAC input and a maximum 15 amp output — that capacity can shrink to as little as 6 amps in India, limiting the appliances that will work with it.
Amazon Smart Plug is available from Amazon (of course) and comes in a single color option: white.
What’s good?
The Smart Plug lives up to Amazon’s promises of easy installation. It goes into pairing mode the moment you plug it in for the first time, and when I opened the Devices tab in the Alexa app, I got a pop-up offering to guide me through the setup process, including adding it to a room group for easier voice control. The most involved things got was scanning a QR code, and editing the plug’s name to be something other than “First Plug.” Don’t worry — if you lose the QR code, you can always add (or re-add) the plug by holding down its power button until the LED starts flashing, then using the Alexa app’s manual addition process.
See also: How to use Amazon Alexa
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